Legal fight over embryo custody is settled

COURTS

A family from Pleasanton and one from suburban St. Louis that sued each other for control of two frozen embryos have agreed to a settlement, attorneys in the case said Friday.

The unusual legal dispute involved four frozen embryos that were donated by Edward and Kerry Lambert of Pleasanton. The embryos were left over from an in-vitro fertilization procedure that produced their son in 2007.

The Lamberts had sued to regain two of the embryos, which remain frozen. Attorneys for the couple and the Missouri couple to whom the embryos were donated, Patrick and Jennifer McLaughlin, did not say who would have custody of the embryos under the legal settlement.

Kerry Lambert and Jennifer McLaughlin originally connected via a Web site designed to facilitate embryo donation rather than have them discarded or donated to science.

The Lamberts signed a contract in February 2009 granting custody of the four embryos to the McLaughlins. It included an unusual clause that if the embryos weren't used within a year, the Lamberts could revoke the agreement.

The McLaughlins, already parents to five children through adoption, had twin daughters in January using two of the embryos. Jennifer McLaughlin said she had delayed deciding what to do with the other two embryos until she saw how raising seven children would go.

She has since decided she wants to give birth to the last two, but in the meantime heard from the Lamberts that they wanted to give the two embryos to a different family. The Lamberts have declined to talk to the media, and it was unclear why they decided to reclaim the embryos.

Lawsuits that the families filed against each other "have been resolved by means of a mutually agreeable settlement," according to a statement issued by the families' attorneys.

"The settlement provides that the disposition of the embryos will be in accordance with the original intent of the parties with the hope that the child or children born from the embryos will be raised with other siblings of the embryos," said the statement.